After a 10-month battle over noise complaints, San Francisco’s Bissap Baobab has prevailed. The Mission District Senegalese restaurant and nightclub will finally receive its beer and wine license, as first reported by Eater.
Bissap Baobab first moved into the former Lupulandia Brewery space at 2243 Mission St. last summer, a revival for the beloved business that closed back in 2019. But things got off to a rocky start when noise complaints from neighbors living in condos next door delayed the restaurant’s liquor license application. Owner Marco Senghor went public with the debacle in February, launching a GoFundMe to raise funds for soundproofing and related losses in business.
Senghor’s adviser, Kevin Ortiz, told SFGATE that Senghor has spent more than $80,000 on soundproofing.
After several court hearings with San Francisco’s office of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, an administrative law judge overruled the protests against Bissab Baobab this month, granting it a beer and wine license after an appeal period. In the decision, the judge wrote that Bissab Baobab serves a public convenience or necessity due to its unique “Senegalese Mexican fusion menu” and the business’s “furtherance of a revitalization effort in the Mission District.”
The judge also acknowledged that Senghor “appears to have made specific efforts to improve compliance with the noise conditions.”
Marco Senghor, the owner of Bissap Baobab, said that he has spent thousands to soundproof his business after neighbors filed complaints about his business to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images“It has been very difficult, so the news has been fantastic,” Senghor told SFGATE. “But we still have to keep the energy because we need to grow now. The rebirth of the Baobab starts today.”
Bissap Baobab was able to survive the delays in obtaining its liquor license by holding other events in the space, such as Zumba and tango classes, as well as renting it out for weddings and birthday parties. Senghor also obtained a loan from the city, and his landlord gave him a rent reduction.
“This was the community really coming together to make sure that this longstanding community institution that’s been around for 25 years in the Mission, one of the few West African eateries in the entire Bay Area that is hosting live international music, is able to survive and able to thrive in the neighborhood,” said Ortiz. “But it really did take a herculean effort. … It shouldn’t have had to be this hard to just apply for a beer and wine license.”
With this beer and wine license victory, Senghor said he’s excited to finally focus on “the food, the colors, the energy, what is really Baobab.” He plans to debut a full calendar of themed nights, such as Afro-Taco Tuesdays with live Afro-Latinx music. The restaurant also recently finished construction on its front patio, and plans to apply for a full liquor license as soon as possible.
“This is a huge community win,” Ortiz said. “… But it does clearly highlight some overlying issues that need to be addressed, whether it’s neighbors that are not understanding or wanting to enjoy vibrant cultures … or just the overall efforts that need to be made to help small businesses return to and thrive on busy economic corridors, like Mission Street.”